The present invention relates generally to armament apparatus for aircraft, and more particularly provides substantial improvements in such apparatus, including a specially designed support structure for mounting machine gun pods and other weaponry on an aircraft, and a machine gun pod featuring a unique shock absorbing gun mount and an electrically driven gun charging assembly mounted on the gun and providing for substantially improved control of its bolt pin.
The external mounting on aircraft of weaponry such as machine guns, rocket launchers and the like, particularly in retrofit applications, has heretofore carried with it a variety of structural, operational and safety limitations and disadvantages. As but one example, the external mounting of machine guns on a helicopter has previously entailed securing an outwardly projecting metal support tube to the helicopter and then mounting the gun on the tube. While this seems to be a fairly straightforward approach, unavoidable limberness in the support tube often leads to firing inaccuracies in the mounted gun due to wobbling of its firing axis relative to the aircraft. This firing axis misalignment is further aggravated by the shock-absorbing and gun alignment inefficiencies of conventional gun mounts used to secure the gun to the outwardly projecting support tube, the firing recoil of the gun typically increasing the wobble of its firing axis.
Another problem has been that conventional gun mounting apparatus has been undesirably heavy--a particularly undesirable characteristic in instances in which the guns are to be mounted on relatively light weight fixed wing aircraft.
Yet another problem is associated with conventional gun charging systems used to drive the machine gun's bolt pin between its "safe" and "armed" positions. These charging systems are typically pneumatically operated and positively drive the bolt pin between its safe and armed position. The relatively slow pneumatic driving of the bolt pin to its armed position tends to fairly frequently jam rounds in the gun's firing chamber. Moreover, the conventional use of pneumatic charging systems requires that at least one pressurized air vessel be carried on the aircraft. This, of course, adds appreciable weight to the overall armament weight which the aircraft must carry, and can additionally pose a serious safety problem in the event of pressure vessel rupture.
It is accordingly an object of the present invention to provide improved aircraft armament apparatus which eliminates or minimizes above-mentioned and other problems, limitations and disadvantages typically associated with conventional aircraft armament apparatus of this general type.